


Everything He Won't Say

by A_Z_Erins



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: M/M, Sex, Slow Build, Soul Bond, Soulmates, Unresolved Sexual Tension, bondmates
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-03-25
Updated: 2014-03-25
Packaged: 2018-01-17 00:55:33
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,488
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1367953
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/A_Z_Erins/pseuds/A_Z_Erins
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Slowbuilding slash! Set a few months after Into Darkness. The Enterprise blows things up, Scotty wins an award, Kirk falls in love with Spock, lots of UST, drunk Captains, jealous rages, evil plots, angsty adventures, and Christmas party shenanigans ensue with the crew of the USS Enterprise. "And suddenly, Jim just knew. 'No...no, nothing is...wrong. I'm...fine, Commander Spock.'"</p>
            </blockquote>





	Everything He Won't Say

Chapter One: The Dark, Sucky Memory Void

Jim couldn't breathe. Or at least, it hurt like hell. Jesus. Jim didn't even know that lungs could  _ache_. Each ragged breath was characterized with stuttering stops and heaving hiccups, and, God, it was like he literally had to  _suck_  the air down. As if that weren't fucking enough. Jim hated coughing with a burning passion, but when a guy felt as though his trachea was literally drowning in something sticky, it was an unfortunate side effect.

 _Ugh_.

His mouth tasted metallic and rusty as a result. Did he mention how much he really hated coughing? Droplets of sweat rolled off of his slick brow and ran down his spine in salty rivulets from the overexertion. The breaths came faster and raspier, if that was even possible, the farther he crawled along the long, empty tunnel. There was such a heavy pounding in his head that Jim, in all the confusing haze, honestly wondered whether he had somehow smacked his cranium into an iron beam without noticing. That really wouldn't be anything new to Jim though, would it? Though, it really had hurt enough on that shuttle to Starfleet for the very first time without a repeat.

His head was heavy and lolling and he could hardly separate which thoughts were actually coherent from the pain-induced mental ramblings _._ Jim shook his head in an effort to rid himself of the knocking in his head.

_Bad idea, Jim._

The tunnel seemed to spin even more, spiraling around him until he felt ready to retch from it…if only he had something in him to retch. He had eaten hardly anything during the past day and his stomach compensated for the lack of sustenance to regurgitate by lurching and threatening to come out of his mouth instead.

Oh  _fuck_.

Jim shut his eyes and mouth to keep from vomiting bile and kept on crawling.

 _Damn_ Kahn.  _Damn_  Marcus.  _Damn_  Starfleet for being so  _fucking stupid._ Gods, how much longer did he have to crawl?

Dimly, Jim registered that even when he got to the final chamber separating himself from the rest of the Enterprise, he would be stuck there. He knew how filled with radiation this entire tunnel was and that that chamber would be filled with it too, making it impossible for anyone on the other side to open the final door and let him out without flooding the entire engineering deck with radiation. Oh God, what if there was no one even there? What if he reached the final door and there wasn't even anyone on the other side?

No. No.  _NO_. Logically (thanks, Spock), it shouldn't have mattered to him whether someone was there or not. After all, that person wouldn't be able to help him…but Jim hoped dearly that someone would be there waiting all the same…so that he wouldn't have to go through this alone.

Jim could be pretty thickheaded sometimes, even he knew this, but he wasn't stupid. He knew what was happening to him, but he didn't dare let this knowledge slow him down (more than the nausea anyway). He could feel the life practically slipping out of him with each labored breath. His arms felt weaker, legs wobblier the closer he got to the final chamber. He kept going with the fevered wish that someone would, after everything, be waiting for him. Even if that person couldn't save him, couldn't open the hatch and hold him through his final moments, Jim hoped he or she was there. Because the fear of…dying…was just swallowing him up.

Yeah. Jim was scared. What of it? He had always known that he would give his own life up for the lives of his crew in a heartbeat, but, Jesus, above everything, he didn't want to be alone when it all ended for him.

_Please._

With heaving breaths, he dragged his almost limp body out from the tunnel and onto the slightly lower floor of the antechamber. Heavy-limbed and on his back, he reached up to use the panel that controlled the hatch that would close off the radiation-filled tunnel behind him. He coughed even as he did this. He knew that closing the hatch still wouldn't be enough. He would still be locked in the antechamber. It was not void of the tiny particles that were currently wreaking havoc on his body. He knew that even as he lay there, coughing up thick bile, that this was it. All that separated him from everything he loved was the thick, transparent hatch that kept the radiation from the starship core contained and away from the rest of his crew. Just a hatch…that no one could open. If he were on the other side, watching himself die, he wouldn't open it either…after all, it was completely his choice to charge into the bowels of the ship to realign the core and sacrifice himself. The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, after all. The logical choice.

Making it this far didn't change a thing. Jim knew that he would die even as he heard the hiss of the hatch behind him slowly descending down, shutting the tunnel to the core off.

_Please. Don't let me be alone._

Jim's eyes fluttered from the pain and then shifted to look at the clear door. His heart nearly leapt out of his throat from the fleeting rush of joy that shot through him. There was someone there. Jim would've smiled if he had the strength to. Spock was there, waiting.

Dark brown, almost black, eyes watched him with that startling intensity that only Spock could manage. His long, slanted eyebrows were drawn together, as if he were mulling over some insanely difficult algorithm that no one but him could solve. But no, that look on his face wasn't…it wasn't quite like that. In his eyes, Jim could see something...more. Oh Spock. Spock, with his stupid, raven-colored bangs that were, quite frankly, a ridiculous length and those comical, pale green ears. Slightly smartass, logical answers, arched-eyebrowed looks, and deadpans in all, Jim was so glad that Spock was there. Now that he knew it was Spock who was on the other side of the door, Jim realized that he really wouldn't rather have anyone else in his place. Not Sulu. Not Chekov. Not Uhura. Not Scotty. Not even Bones. He and his first officer shared a special bond after all of the Starfleet missions they had been on together. Jim didn't really know how to explain the bond, but it was there and it was more than friendship. "Completely platonic", Jim would assure anyone suspicious of said bond. The friendship was there as well, of course. From complete, utter hate, it had grown until he would absolutely not have had anyone else as his first officer. Something made them…similar…like kindred spirits, if Jim believed in those. It could've been the similarities in their childhood; they were both always the odd one out, or something Jim didn't really understand himself.

In that moment, Jim would have given anything to be back on the Enterprise bridge with his crew, laughing at something that Spock didn't understand because of his Vulcan half's logicalness. He longed to see that slight twitch of an eyelid that meant Spock was fighting to roll his eyes or display some sort of exasperated emotion at the crude, human display of amusement at his expense. Spock was supposed to be emotionless; to always have his features perfectly in check. Those rare and quick moments when Jim caught him feeling something more, but fighting not to show it, were precious to Jim. He had gotten quite good at finding the signs too. After ages of Jim thinking the man had a gigantic stick up his ass and as they grew closer, those instances had made themselves clearer to Jim. But he loved them no less than the first couple times when he realized that Spock could, in fact,  _feel_. Well…feel without bloodying Jim up against the bridge console, anyway. That was one display of emotion Jim wasn't very keen on repeating.

All that mattered now though, was that Spock was there. Spock wouldn't make him face his death by himself.

Words were spoken through the glass door. Jim was fighting so hard to stay conscious that moments after each sentence was said, he hardly remembered it anymore. Still, he did his best to speak. He could feel his lips moving, and even that hurt, but Jim spoke anyway. After all, he was pretty damn sure that these were his last words.

Spock explained how he used the photon torpedoes to blow up the  _Vengeance._  Well, he phrased it more like, "utilized the explosive capabilities of all experimental photon torpedoes to interrupt the commandeered USS Vengeance's functioning abilities from within the weapons bay," but either way, Jim became inexplicably proud when he heard this. It was crazy thinking…wild and risky. Just imagining Spock doing something so out of the box got Jim all excited. God, he wished he could've been there to see Spock being pretty much the best, badass, damn Vulcan ever.

Something…sad…flashed through Spock's eyes when Jim told him how smart he thought that was.

"It is…what you would have done," said Spock, with a slight lowering of his eyelids, telling Jim he was conflicted about something. His words echoed in Jim's head.

'What you would have done'. What Jim would have done? Playing the enemy into beaming up the armed photon torpedoes and then blowing them up in his weapons hangar? Nah. Jim didn't think he could be  _that_  awesome. Awesome, yes. But Spock, Jesus, that was on a completely different level of awesomeness. Charging into the warp core to realign the reactor with the intent of sacrificing himself so that the most possible number of lives could be saved? That was…that was…

"And this…this is what you would have done," Jim managed to say back, his eyes fluttering closed. It really hurt now. Each word sent pain shooting through his entire body.

But it was what Spock would have done though. The whole self-sacrifice thingy had always been Spock's area. It had been when he programmed the  _Kobayashi Maru._ It had been when he had almost gotten himself charbroiled inside a volcano or when he had flown a completely futuristic ship full of highly volatile red matter first at the space drill on Earth, and then straight at the Narada itself. Jim had always known somewhere inside that he was expected to give up his life for his crew as captain, but…well…he had really hoped it would never come to that, because he really hated the self-sacrifice thingy. Like,  _really_  hated it. He knew that it probably had something to do with his father and stuff, but still. Sure, it was all heroic and made for some great stories (Well, great to other people anyway. Jim couldn't stand those stories either. Jim liked to see the hero survive and save everyone after all of his hard work.), but Jim didn't believe in no-win scenarios.

This train of thought led him to wonder, given the chance, would he switch places with Spock? Maybe it should have been Jim on the other side of the door and Spock here, breathing his last breaths? That was how it always should have been, right? That's what anyone would have guessed. But even as he thought this, Jim knew his answer…and it surprised him. Sure, as captain, it was easy to imagine giving up his life for his crew. It was expected of him, after all. It was his duty…but those were still just words. Jim found that he  _honestly_  would give up everything just to protect his crew. Which totally went against his whole 'no no-win scenarios' thing, but there you go. Should he have felt some regrets about this sacrifice or have wished that it were someone else giving up his or her life instead of him? Maybe…but he didn't feel anything like that. He regretted things like not calling his mom more often (God knew he put Winona through hell with worry for him) and making Bones always pick up after him when he did something stupid (which was pretty often). But not this. This…this felt right. His life for his crew. No regrets. More than anything, he didn't regret that he and Spock had switched places for this; that he was the one dying and Spock was living. He didn't know why it filled him with…what? Gratitude? Yeah, gratitude to some god somewhere, but it did. Spock still had so much to give, to Starfleet and New Vulcan and, well, pretty much to anyone who knew him. With his massive intellect and every other little thing that made him Spock, he was more use to the world than Jim was. Jim honestly believed that. All he was ever good for were some well-placed innuendos, shameless, drunk flirting at sketchy bars, and a couple of plans that were so reckless and crazy that they were brilliant. Why would anyone want Jim alive when they could have Spock? Spock was…Spock. Brilliant and brave and strong and logical. But it was still more than that. Jim wanted Spock to live because he was his friend. Maybe even his best friend, but...in a way that was different from Bones.

Now that he knew exactly where he stood with this entire situation, Jim found that dying was maybe a teensy bit easier to face. But the fact remained that he still had so much he wanted to live for. Sure, he had established that he would give it all up for everyone on the Enterprise, but it was still hard. The worst part for Jim was just…how much he would miss. Jim lived for excitement and risks and…God…just to  _really live_. He didn't hold back anything. He had finally left those awful days behind when all he did was drink until his blood was drowning in alcohol and he couldn't feel his entire life hurtling downwards in a freefall. He didn't feel useless anymore. He had purpose to his life now as a Captain. He gave his all to everything and flew through life like everyday could be his last now instead of wasting away with shotglasses in his hands and bloody tissues hanging out of his nose. To actually know that today  _was_  actually his last day, his last moments, was the worst. So much would happen without him and he would miss it all. New discoveries, new worlds…and he wouldn't see it. Wouldn't be a part of it as a Captain of the Enterprise.

And he was so scared. Goddammit, he had never felt like this before. This…fear of the unknown. Of darkness, of slipping away, of being alone. But he wasn't alone, he knew that. Spock was there and that made everything somehow just a little better. He wanted more than anything in that moment to just not feel. He wanted it all go away. He wanted all the pain in his limbs to disappear, for his breath to just, please, stop hurting so much, to stop seeing flashbacks of everything he regretted, to stop hearing everyone he loved calling his name, to stop imagining blackness, to just stop it all. Gods, how did Spock not feel?

Jim asked him.

Everything would be so much easier if Jim couldn't feel. Because what he was feeling? Hurt. It hurt more than anything he had ever felt, more than the worst physical pain imaginable. Thank God people only had to experience their final moments once.

He squeezed his eyes shut to, futilely, contain some of that anguish. When he opened them, he saw Spock's brown eyes on him. Was that…moistness in his eyes? Even now, he struggled to try to catch glimpses of Spock's emotions.

"I do not know. Right now…I am feeling," said Spock softly.

What? What was Spock feeling? Jim was floundering to see. But…

Oh. Oh, he felt it then. He could feel his body just literally giving up. He could feel the blackness rushing toward him like a speeding phaser shot. Nothing could stop it now. Jim reached for Spock, his palm hitting the door, splayed out in a silent calling for a hand to hold. Spock. Help. The fear was closing in. Spock. Alone. No. Scared. Spock. Help. Dark. No. He couldn't. Spock. So much more. Enterprise. Alone. Spock. Captain. First Officer. Spock. Friend.

Jim's vision was ringed with black and with each second, it got darker. Reaching. Reaching. He realized that Spock had pressed the ta'al sign on the door where Jim's palm was still searching for a touch to provide some semblance comfort through these frantic, quick seconds. Touch. Why couldn't he touch Spock? Ta'al.

_Thank you, Spock._

With aching muscles even in his fingers and with every ounce of strength he had left, Jim shifted his fingers to match Spock's.

_Scared. Alone. No. Spock. Together. Friend. Friend. Glad it's you. Spock. Spock. Sp-_

Black.

* * *

Jim's eyes flew open in the dark of his quarters. He fought the urge to bolt upright in his bed and shake off that cold, clammy, clinging fear. Just a dream. Calm down, Jim. It was over now. He was flat on his back, blinking up at the ceiling with the sheets in a swarming sea around his legs. His heart was thumping erratically in his chest and he could feel his racing blood thrumming beneath his skin. Lingering visions from The Dream danced behind his eyelids. His breath was coming out in quick and ragged huffs, but the increased oxygen was doing nothing to calm his twitching muscles and crawling skin.

 _Jesus, Jim. Get a hold of yourself._.

He had that uncomfortable feeling in his stomach, the one a person got right as he or she was thrown into a free fall, where all of the internal organs seemed to get themselves scrambled up. It was like a gaping hole had opened up in his stomach and the dark void was slowly swirling, him spinning along with it. Hell, he wasn't even sure if that made any sense, but that was how he felt.

He could feel his t-shirt plastered to the skin of his torso and the damp sheets all around him. Jesus, it was like he had sweated a whole damn swimming pool. It was sticky and hot and all around uncomfortable. He was just  _burning_  up under sheets.

" _Right now I am feeling."_

A slight tremor that had nothing to do with temperature ran down his spine as he sat up, pushing the heated covers off his drenched and sweaty body. He reached under the hem of his tee and tugged it over and off his head tossing it somewhere in the vicinity of the replicator. The Enterprise's cool climate-controlled air seemed to attack his hot, damp flesh once the shirt was off and Jim shivered once more.

He fell back into his pillow with a whoosh of air and felt the pillow fluff up around his ears. He let out a slow exhale of air from his lungs that could have been mistaken for a sigh, you know, if Jim sighed. But he didn't. Because men didn't sigh. And men didn't let stupid dreams/memories get the best of them. No way. And Jim was a man.

He let his palms fall onto his face as he shook his head and tried to clear the strange, empty feeling that The Dream always left lingering in it's wake. He rolled over onto his side, squinting to himself as the numbers presented themselves in his head.

That made…what? Five times? No…six. Yeah, six times in all he had had that infuriating dream. Six  _fucking_  times.

Jesus. He had to get a hold on the entire situation. He was the Captain of Starfleet's flagship, after all. Plus, it did really awful things to how he viewed himself when little things like dreams started interfering with his capacity to Captain his ship. It was a  _memory_ , for Christ's sake. Sure, it was one of him quite literally crossing over into the land of the dead but just a dream all the same. And he's be damned if something so…mental…and  _untouchable_  stood in his way. Jim really hated that he was fighting against his own psyche. He needed himself on his own side, dammit!

That had made sense to Jim, so he went along with it.

Jim groaned internally. The Captain of a ship like the USS Enterprise could not afford to get distracted.

And that's what the dream did. It distracted him to no end and kept him from completing daily tasks like captaining his ship or just obtaining something to eat from his replicator with the amount of ease he normally did. Each time he had The Dream, Jim would be out of sorts for the next couple days. He would be disorientated and unfocused because his damn thoughts would keep drifting back to those final moments locked in that chamber. Jim didn't really have such great focus anyway unless Klingons were shooting antimatter warheads at him or the hull of his ship was imploding in on itself or something, so The Dream made it, like, ten times worse. Everywhere he went, no matter what he did, it was like he was back  _there,_ breathing in atomic particles and tasting rusty blood in his mouth. He would be laying in that tight space, pressed up against the clear hatch all over again. He would hear his mother calling his name and Pike daring him to do better than his father again. The Dream brought memories beyond itself rushing back. Every regret and fear he had felt in his final moments now followed him everywhere. So much for feeling that sort of emptiness only once. He just couldn't get away from it all.

Damn dying and coming back to life. It just made everything so damn complicated! Jim was completely aware of the meaningful looks his crew members would shoot each other when they thought his back was turned each time he seemed to jerk somewhat violently out of his thoughts. They didn't know about his reoccurring dream problem, but they could infer that dying did some pretty sick things to a guy. He could see the silent question in their eyes when they asked for orders, wondering whether he was all right. Well, he was fine! Well…he would be fine. As soon as he could forget about TDT (The Dying Thing). Okay, not forget but become indifferent. Okay, not indifferent but just…Jim struggled to explain it to himself and found it hard to find the right words. It was just a  _moment_. A couple minutes in his life just like any other.

Jim would acknowledge that they were not insignificant but he  _had_  to move on from them. He couldn't keep living his life like this! He was not a very patient man and waiting for his mind and body to return to normal was killing him. Then, once Jim had finally gotten his mind slightly off the dream-memory-thing, he would have that  _fucking_  dream again. He knew that it could not go on like this. The Enterprise had been lucky so far in that they had only been assigned relatively benign and peaceful missions and scientific research positions, but if something dangerous happened, and it usually did on the Enterprise if given a little time, he needed his wits about him to protect and guide his crew. He could overcome this dream. He could. It was just a dream. He had to, damn it! But, you know, actually dying did that sort of thing to a person. Even if that person was Jim Kirk. Gah. Stupid.

Jim kicked the sheets off and flung his legs over the side of his bed while trying to shake the sleep out of him. He checked the time on the clock next to his bed.

0331 hours. Perfect.

Normally Jim wouldn't even dream of being up so early but having The Dream changed certain things. Not only did it leave Jim feeling lost and confused, it left behind another present, the little bastard. It was that hollow, empty feeling in his stomach that Jim had described as a void to himself earlier. It was a remnant of all the fear and aloneness he had felt welled up inside of him that night. It gathered in the pit of his stomach and refused to budge at all of Jim's urging and rationalizing that that part of his life was over. Jim hated it. It made no sense! He had no reason to be scared anymore! He wasn't alone; his crew constantly surrounded him except for when he was in his quarters to sleep. He wanted to live, not be kept back by the horrible feelings The Dream inspired. He was Jim Kirk! Wily, unpredictable, reckless, a wild child! And he was proud of that!

Though the confusion and disorientation took time (lots of it, dammit) to go away on it's on after each time he had The Dream, Jim knew of a way that he was able to get rid of the hollow, alone feeling now, and he wasn't keen on waiting. Jim was never keen on waiting after all. If he knew of a way to face or get rid of something he considered a weakness, he would almost always do it right away and damn the consequences.

This miracle "cure", as Jim had come to think of it made the unwanted empty feeling go away like nothing else did. He didn't really know why it made all the bad things go away…but it did. Maybe it was fact that this cure had brought him back from the bleak ever-after or the words that the cure had said in Jim's last moments. But seeing the "cure" always made Jim feel instantly better, and he wasn't about to question the life out of why that was. Jim wasn't about to admit it, but it was like he was  _addicted._ The cure made everything better and Jim just couldn't get enough. Jim kind of felt like he was objectifying Sp-, the cure. (Hey, it was hard for Jim to admit that he was addicted to just a person's  _presence_.)…He felt like he was objectifying the cure, but damn he needed that little dose alone with it to feel even remotely okay.

It just so happened that the cure worked mornings. Like, super early mornings. And Jim knew just where to find it. Him.

Spock.


End file.
